


Epidural

by comfortingclouds



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Infant Death, Modern AU, NONBINARY LAF, Other, Parent AU, Pregnancy, basically this whole thing is just I Hate My Entire Whole Being, do not read the next tag if u dont want spoilers. but also read it if you feel you may be triggered, im so sorrynriqebgoqebviv fuuckk, kind of??, which i forget isnt canon??
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-22
Updated: 2017-07-22
Packaged: 2018-12-05 07:15:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11573073
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/comfortingclouds/pseuds/comfortingclouds
Summary: “I want to talk about kids.”Laf’s heart immediately started drumming in their ears. They crossed their ankles in an attempt at staying nonchalant. “Kids?”“I want to – “ Alex swallowed. “Do you want to have… kids?”“I…” Laf looked at Alex with what they hoped wasn’t the excitement bubbling in their chest. “Yes, I do. With you. I mean, someday.”Alex’s faced dropped, just for a fraction of a moment, and Laf’s lungs stopped working.“Do you mean now?”Alex shifted in the door frame, his eyes not quite on Laf, just a bit over his shoulder.“Will you please come sit down?”“I want a baby,” Alex blurted, and his eyes met Laf’s again.





	Epidural

                “Oh, my god oh my god ohmygod ohmygodohmygodohm-“

                “ _Alexander_.”

                “Shit, yes?!”

                “I swear to you,” Eliza huffed, looking Alex square in the eyes, her jaw clenched, her face red. Sweat glued the wisps of hair that had escaped her ponytail to the edges of her face and neck. “If you – if you say, ‘Oh my god’, one more time, God himself will be the only thing that can save your ass.”

                Lafayette bit back the mirth that rose when Alex looked at them, as wounded as a scolded puppy and as pale as a ghost, his hand trapped tightly in Eliza’s. Alex’s eyes flitted around Laf’s face for a second, took in the laugh tugging at the corners of their mouth, and a bit of color came back to his cheeks – his eyebrows unfurled a bit, and he offered Laf a small, watery smile.

                “Alright,” said the doctor, turning around. “Are you ready to push, sweetheart?”

                Eliza’s head fell back with a soft thump against the pillow on the bed on which she laid. “Don’t call me sweetheart,” she breathed. Laf bit their lip against the urge to snicker. There was so much anger is such a small person, and he’d thought _Alex_ was the best exhibition of that!

                “Yes ma’am,” said the doctor good-naturedly. “Are you ready to push?”

                Eliza took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and nodded.

                “Alright.” The doctor moved in and the nurses that had been completing their own tasks just a little bit before stood attentively around the bed. “Let’s push.”

                Birth was weird, Laf decided, and that was a sentiment he could see echoed in their husband’s face. Birth was really weird. And for all the times that Laf had been generally unsatisfied with their genitals, they were, at that moment, incredibly grateful that they weren’t in Eliza’s place. With every contraction, there would be a soft command: “Alright, push!” and Eliza’s face would drain and she’d groan and it was just, in general, very strange.

                After about twenty minutes of pushing and Alex’s hand looking as Caucasian as it could, Eliza flopped back onto the bed, and said, “What the _hell_ made you two decide to do this to me?!”

_“Hey, babe?”_

_Laf looked up from their book. Alex stood, his hands behind his back, in the bedroom doorway, hair still ruffled from sleep, lines from the sheets still on his arm. “What’s wrong?” they asked._

_“Nothing’s wrong.”_

_“I know you’re wringing your hands behind your back.”_

_Alex paused and slowly brought his hands forward, and then brought one up to run his neck and the other to balance him against the door frame. “Nothing’s wrong,” he said again._

_Laf looked at Alex for a few seconds, silent seconds that he could tell Alex wished he’d fill, waiting expectantly for Alex to continue. When he didn’t, they slowly folded their page, closed their book, and placed it on the coffee table. “Okay,” they said. “Do you want to sit down?”_

_“Nah, I – “ Alex took a deep breath, looking down at the floor, and brought his eyes up to meet Laf’s. With a voice that only slightly shook, he said, slowly: “I want to talk about kids.”_

_Laf’s heart immediately started drumming in their ears. They crossed their ankles in an attempt at staying nonchalant. “Kids?”_

_“I want to – “ Alex swallowed. “Do you want to have… kids?”_

_“I…” Laf looked at Alex with what they hoped wasn’t the excitement bubbling in their chest. “Yes, I do. With you. I mean, someday.”_

_Alex’s faced dropped, just for a fraction of a moment, and Laf’s lungs stopped working._

_“Do you mean now?”_

_Alex shifted in the door frame, his eyes not quite on Laf, just a bit over his shoulder._

_“Will you please come sit down?”_

_“I want a baby,” Alex blurted, and his eyes met Laf’s again. “Every time we’ve talked about kids, we’ve said ‘someday’ and every day is some kind of a day, Gilbert, I –“ Alex began wringing his hands again, unaware of it, and stepped forward into the room. “I know we both want kids. We both want to be parents! And we’re married, we’ve been married for almost four years, and I am so happy but I feel – I feel it, like – I feel it…” and Alex was beating his hands against his chest, and Laf was on their feet, grabbing at his arms to keep him still._

_Alex shuddered against Laf’s grasp and they loosened their hold. They took a slow, quiet breath and moved closer in toward their husband. “Alex,” they whispered._

_“I feel it in my_ heart _, Laf,” Alex croaked, and squinted, looking down against the sudden tears._

_Lafayette didn’t pull him closer. They knew if they did, Alex would only hear their ridiculously quick heartbeat and be more upset. But Lafayette slid their hands from his wrists to his palms and gripped them tightly. “Alex,” they said again._

_Alex swallowed again, this time past the lump in his throat. “What?”_

_“You haven’t called me Gilbert in a while,” they murmured. Alex said nothing, only responded by closing the gap between them by stepping forward, and putting his wet face on Laf’s shirt. Laf let go of his hands and instead wrapped their arms around him. “I want a baby too,” they admitted._

_Alex looked up from within Laf’s arms. “Then why did you say ‘someday’?”_

_Laf rested their forehead on Alex and pecked his nose. “We’ve always said someday,” they said._

_“What about today?”_

_“Eh, well,” Laf cleared their throat. “We have literally no baby-proof furniture in the apartment, so maybe not literally_ today _.”_

_“But,” Alex said, searching Laf’s face for… for something Laf couldn’t tell. “But someday.”_

_“Someday soon,” Laf emphasized._

                The doctor laughed a little and Laf joined in. Eliza glared, but Laf, unphased, just said, “I mean, we didn’t force you.” Alex looked like he agreed, but cautiously said nothing. Eliza’s hand was still tightly wrapped around his. Laf grinned. “You said you would when we asked.”

                “What made you ask?!”

                Laf had never heard Eliza so shrill. “We want a kid?”

                “No,” Eliza groaned. “I want to know why, of all people, you asked _me_ to be the surrogate.”

                “Oh, well,” Laf said, and looked to Alex. “It, ah, it was Alex’s idea.”

                Eliza turned her accusing gaze to Alex. He smiled sheepishly. “You’re the first person I thought of that has a vagina,” he joked.

                “Oh, lovely,” Eliza breathed, and laid back down.

                “Are you ready to push again?”

                “I guess,” she grumbled.

                “It was more than that,” Laf said.

_“What about Eliza?” Alex said, so quietly that it was almost silent._

_Laf looked at him quizzically. “Eliza?”_

_“I,” Alex said. The calendars and pamphlets and scripts and receipts piled on the coffee table in front of them waited for him to continue. And maybe Laf did, too._

_“Do you not want to adopt?” Laf asked quietly. “Would you rather have a surrogate?”_

_Alex smiled tentatively. “I kind of want the baby to have your hair.”_

_“Well, I mean,” Laf said, dramatically flipping their curls over their shoulder, “I can understand that.”_

_“So,” Alex chuckled, “I thought… I really would only trust Eliza to do that for us.”_

_Laf sat back in their chair. “It’d be completely up to her,” they said._

_"I know.”_

_Laf looked at Alex, at their husband. Husband. Author, politician, lawyer, The Most Passionate Man Alive and soon, father. Their Alex. They reached out a hand, and Alex took it. “You don’t want to find a surrogate through some kind of agency?” Laf asked. “Where we can get a professionally implemented contract with a stranger, and we don’t end up putting our best friend through the emotional and physical wringer for nine months?”_

_Alex squeezed Laf’s hand. “It’d be her choice,” he reminded them. “And that’s always an option, but if I could say that I trust anyone in this world with my family, anyone besides you, who already is my family, it would be Eliza.”_

                “It was a matter of trust,” Laf told Eliza, and she grunted in response.

                Alex glanced up at Laf gratefully before adding, “We don’t know anybody else who we knew would be as careful, or well-scheduled, or as kind to the baby.”

                “That’s…” Eliza puffed up her cheeks, held it, and then coughed out, “… much better.”

                Alex chuckled. “I mean, I would’ve been as well-scheduled –“

                “Oh, you were,” Laf teased.

 _“I’m_ just _saying, we should know.”_

 _“I don’t_ want _to know, Alex,” said Laf stubbornly, sitting down on the couch with a flourish._

_Alex looked like he was fighting to keep from throwing his hands in the air. “If we don’t know the gender, how are we supposed to prepare to care for this baby?”_

_Laf grabbed their book off the coffee table and raised an eyebrow. “The gender.”_

_Alex flooded red. “I’m sorry, I meant the genitals.”_

_“What’s so immediately different between the care for a vagina and the care for a penis?” they asked, nonplussed._

_“It doesn’t have to be an immediate difference to be one worth taking into account,” Alex countered, and sat down on the couch right where Laf was about to put their feet. And Alex knew that. Laf looked over their book, stone-faced._

_“Not every difference, detail, nook and cranny of this baby need to be mapped out and scheduled as tightly as possible,” Laf said coldly. “What would knowing their parts do to us except provide us with an opportunity to assume they’re a girl or a boy?”_

_“Babe.” The word hissed out between Alex’s clenched teeth. “Society isn’t going to stop for us. I know the gender binary is stupid and I know it’s a sore spot,” he said, and when Laf raised his book up to ignore Alex, Alex reached out and shoved it down. “But there is a difference raising a child with no assumptions about their gender and raising a child with no personal identity._ We _have to give that baby the foundation of an identity so it can build on it, and that includes legally assigning a gender at birth, I’m sorry. They can always,_ always _change their assignment, and we can ALWAYS be honest and tell them that it’s up to them, but we have to prepare for the plumbing that’s coming out in four months.”_

_“I’m aware of all of this,” Laf choked, and Alex’s face softened._

_“I’m sorry,” Alex repeated. “You know that, if we find out now, we can start planning for the questions they’ll ask, right? If we find out now, we can be ready when our kid asks why they’re a girl or why they’re a boy. We can have a whole dialogue ready, and prepared.”_

_Laf closed their book with a snap and stood up. “You don’t get it.” He tried to cross the room to the bedroom._

_“I know I don’t,” Alex called after them. “So can you tell me why you’re so_ afraid _of this?!”_

_“I don’t want to get it wrong!” Laf hurled the words at Alex._

_Alex waited patiently, quietly, for Laf to continue._

_“It sucks,” Laf said. They wiped furiously at the corners of their eyes. “It sucks so much to feel like everything the world liked you for isn’t really there because you’re not who everyone thinks you are. It feels like lying. It sucks to come out. It sucks to look at my driver’s license and see the little ‘M’ there. It sucks. I wanted the world to be better before…”_

_Alex didn’t wait this time. “Before we have a baby.”_

_Laf nodded and wrapped their arms around themself._

_“I’m sorry,” Alex said quietly. “I want the world to be better too.”_

_Laf wished, more than anything, that Alex was wrong, and that they didn’t have to give in. But they knew he was right, and so they slowly crossed back over to Alex, who was already crossing to them._

_“But I think,” Alex noted, “probably it’ll be better by the time our baby has a baby.”_

_“Oh my god,” Laf said, and shook their head before leaning it on Alex. Alex wrapped his arms around them, and they did the same. “That’s so weird.”_

_“Very weird,” he agreed._

_Laf hummed into Alex’s shoulder. Alex traced circles into their back. “I still don’t want to know,” they said._

_Alex froze, and then Laf felt him sigh. “I just want –“_

_“I know you want to be prepared,” Laf said, pulling back from Alex. His eyes were so tired. He wondered if Alex had slept last night. Or that week. They rubbed their thumb across his cheek. “But this really isn’t a surprise that will hurt us. You know it’s not. Plenty of parents keep it a surprise.”_

_Alex watched Laf for a moment. “I suppose I can prepare for both sets of parts,” he conceded, and Laf kissed his forehead._

                “I’m sorry Eliza, I don’t think you could ever be as well-scheduled as Alex was.”

                “She was well-scheduled because of me,” Alex fired back playfully. Laf could see color in his cheeks again.

                And it was at that moment that Lafayette noticed the look the doctor gave to the nurse. Nothing was said, and so Lafayette said nothing, but the bright, positive face the doctor had given them before was now much more somber.

                “I’m gonna need you to stop pushing, Ms. Schuyler,” the doctor said, and Alex looked up in alarm.

                “I just finished pushing like two second ago,” Eliza said, still breathy from the cough.

                “I know,” the doctor said.

                Eliza, whose face had been so red, was suddenly becoming very ashen. “Eliza?” Alex said, at the same moment that Laf said, “What’s going on?”

                The doctor straightened up and the nurses followed suit, and suddenly, Lafayette was being pushed off to the side. “Something is wrong,” Eliza whispered. “Something is wrong.”

                “Eliza?” Alex said again. Eliza’s grip on Alex’s hand loosened, and a nurse took her hand from Alex.

                “You’re both going to want to stay seated,” said the nurse.

                “What’s wrong,” Eliza demanded. It was not a question.

                “Your uterus ripped,” the doctor said, and Laf was suddenly very aware of the metal tools occupying only one of the side tables in the room.

                Eliza, for the first time Laf could remember, looked scared. “Am I going to die?”

                Alex and Lafayette locked panicked eyes over the curtain the nurses were hastily pulling closed around the table. “You’ll want to stay seated,” a different nurse said, and Alex grabbed Laf’s hand and pulled them down. “We’ll tell you when to stand.”

                “Is the baby going to die?” Eliza asked.

                “We have to perform a C-section,” the doctor said, a little too calmly to match the pace the room was now at.

                Laf couldn’t see Eliza now, but he heard the joke, and he heard the tremor in it. “Is it too late for an epidural?”

                No one laughed. Alex’s grip was as vice-like as Laf’s was weak. Alex was shaking. Laf couldn’t find movement in a cell in their body.iiiiio0

                _“Who is that?” Alex asked, as both he and Laf stared in wonder at the persistent, loud knocking at their door. Laf stood, and as soon as the bolt was removed, the door flung open and suddenly Eliza was in his arms, jumping up and down and yelling._

_“What?!” Alex had leapt to his feet._

_“I’M PREGNANT!” Eliza shouted again._

_“HOLY SHIT!”_

_“PUTAIN_! _” Laf grabbed Eliza around the waist and spun her around._

_“I’M PREGNANT!”_

_“YOU’RE PREGNANT!”_

_“WE’RE PARENTS!”_

_“YOU’RE PARENTS!”_

_“MERDE!”_

_And suddenly, all of them were crying, and nobody cared. They were crying, and spinning, and dancing – they ran around the apartment, turned their music all the way up, and they were crying._

                Nobody was crying now, and Laf wished they would. They wished anyone would. They wished Eliza wasn’t trying to joke her way through this. They wished Alex wasn’t hiding in their chest. Nobody was dancing, there was no music. They wished they could cry.

                It was slow. It was three minutes, and then four. Another doctor was called in. And then another. Eliza called for Alex once, and Alex was told immediately to stay seated.

                Nine minutes. They were escorted from the room. They stared at each other, and at the door that had closed behind them.

                Alex said it. “What if that’s the last time we see Eliza?”

                Laf couldn’t say what came next. _What if we never see our child?_

                Every memory leading up to that moment was gone. In their place were all the memories Laf had hoped for, memories that hadn’t been made yet. Fantasies that they and Alex had concocted in the past two years, premonitions that Eliza had given them. Hopes, and dreams. Every dress they could’ve bought, every suit they would’ve worn. Every time they would’ve cried too loudly for too long at night, and Laf felt horrible for letting Alex get up to take care of them again. Every time that baby, their baby, would’ve taken a step – toward them, or a friend, or a passion. Every awkward conversation when pubic hair started to grow, every breakup that Alex and Laf would be there through, every graduation, every announcement, every I miss you and I love you and call me to let me know you’re okay –

                Still, they didn’t cry. Ten minutes.

                Eleven minutes.

                Twelve.

                Thirteen.

 

 

                Sixteen.

 

 

 

                Twenty.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                Thirty.

 

 

 

 

 

 

                Thirty-seven.

                And just as Alex had sat down in the hall chair, having given up on rooting Laf from their spot, the door opened.

                In the end, it was not the last time they saw Eliza. Eliza was alright. Eliza sat up with them, late at night, for months afterward. Eliza answered every call. Eliza was still a sister, and a friend, and part of a family. And in the end, they did get to see their child. Their child just never saw them.

                Their name is Rachel Elizabeth Hamilton.

**Author's Note:**

> i fuAcking HATE MYSELF IM SO! SORRY!  
> so in case it wasn't clear, eliza went through uterine rupture, which can cause hemorhagging in the carrier and a lack of blood flow to the fetus. normally in these cases an emergency c-section is performed and there tends to be 10-37 minutes to, essentially, save the baby. that didnt happen here because i SUCK IM SO SORRY  
> (if you notice anywhere that i wrote "him" for laf can u pls lmk because i mean "them")  
> also. im posting one (1) chapter attached to this that is this same fic but with an alternate ending so i wont hate myself so much  
> also hi im back


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